Tales of the South Pacific - James A. Michener [125]
Suddenly, he took up his own unfinished letter to his wife, went with his finger to the part that read, When I think of what the others have gone through, I'm a little bit ashamed, but I must admit that 1 am somewhat proud to say that I stood up as well as most. Only once was I really beaten down. He struck out the last sentence and got a fresh piece of paper. What business was it of anyone's that he was beaten down when he thought of an Aztec sacrifice to the sun god? That was a mighty silly thing to say in a letter when you compared it with what Bill Harbison was able to write.
Furtively, he laid Bill's letter on the table before him and began to copy rapidly. My beloved darling, I'll tell you about it when I am once more safe in your cool arms. Feverishly, as if this were the ultimate expression of what he had been storing up in his heart, he copied the last two pages of Bill's letter. His pen scrawled on, I love you, I love you, Oh my darling.
He dropped his pen and looked at the last line. In his letter it didn't look right. Never in his life had he said anything even remotely like Oh my darling. It sounded utterly silly when you said it that way: Oh my darling, Oh my darling, Oh my darling Clementine! You are lost and gone forever, Drefful sorry, Clementine!
The words sounded good! He started to sing the whole song, and as he did so, he began to laugh within himself and to feel very happy. With dancing motions he stuffed Bill Harbison's letter back into its envelope. He sealed the letter and stamped it. Then, with the same mincing, half dancing gestures he neatly tore up the last half of his own letter. Laughing loudly by this time, he signed the part that he had first written. He signed it, All my love, Paul.
A BOAR'S TOOTH
LUTHER BILLIS and Tony Fry were a pair! Luther was what we call in the Navy a "big dealer." Ten minutes after he arrived at a station he knew where to buy illicit beer, how to finagle extra desserts, what would be playing at the movies three weeks hence, and how to avoid night duty.
Luther was one of the best. When his unit was staging in the Hebrides before they built the airstrip at Konora he took one fleeting glance at the officers near by and selected Tony Fry. "That's my man!" he said. Big dealers knew that the best way for an enlisted man to get ahead was to leech on to an officer. Do things for him. Butter him up. Kid him along. Because then you had a friend at court. Maybe you could even borrow his jeep!
Tony was aware of what was happening. The trick had been pulled on him before. But he liked Billis. The fat SeaBee was energetic and imaginative. He looked like something out of Treasure Island. He had a sagging belly that ran over his belt by three flabby inches. He rarely wore a shirt and was tanned a dark brown. His hair was long, and in his left ear he wore a thin golden ring. The custom was prevalent in the South Pacific and was a throwback to pirate days.
He was liberally tattooed. On each breast was a fine dove, flying toward his heart. His left arm contained a python curled around his muscles and biting savagely at his thumb. His right arm had two designs: Death Rather Than Dishonor and Thinking of Home and Mother. Like the natives, Luther wore a sprig of frangipani in his hair.
It was Luther's jewelry, however, that surprised Tony. On his left arm Billis wore an aluminum watch band, a heavy silver slave bracelet with his name engraved, and a superb wire circlet made of woven airplane wire welded and hammered flat. On his right wrist he had a shining copper bracelet on which his social security and service numbers were engraved. And he wore a fine boar's tusk.
"What's that?" Tony asked him one day.
"A boar's tusk," Billis replied.
"What in the world is a boar's tusk?" Fry asked.
"You got a jeep, Mr. Fry?"
"Yes."
"Then why don't we go see the old chief?" Billis